


Wear It Like a Second Skin

by OrtegaTrash (Malicei)



Series: Fallen Hero Fics [11]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Fashion diaster, Gen, Original Character - Freeform, Outfits, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 07:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malicei/pseuds/OrtegaTrash
Summary: A character study. Pride’s fashion (disaster) decisions have more to them than meets the eye.





	Wear It Like a Second Skin

They say clothes make the man.

* * *

**-Nothing-**

You are created in a lab, amniotic fluid still in your lungs as they ready the tattoo gun. Your birth is greeted not with fanfare and relieved joy but the searing pain of a needle on freshly grown skin. Life teaches you its first lesson then - and the lesson it teaches is pain.

The needle strikes again and again, right over your heart. Reduces everything you are into a barcode for them to access at a whim. That’s when you learn your second lesson: _To cry is to show weakness. To show weakness is to leave yourself vulnerable to punishment._

_You should never let yourself be weak, or they will destroy you._

That is the lesson they teach you.

* * *

**-Hospital Gown-**

It makes them uncomfortable to see you looking so human. There are some things that can’t be overriden by the conscious rational mind no matter how much they try.

So you are given a gown. Something to preserve your modesty. It makes little sense when they oversaw your development from little more than a clump of cells to what you are now - but they never do explain themselves to you.

“What makes you humans so special?” you ask idly. It’s a risk to bother them when they’re working but this one has only been showing signs of being frustratingly lonely. Talking to herself and the machinery, at least _you’ll_ answer back.

“Huh?”

You continue on, undeterred. “I heard it was something to do with souls. But I can’t really see it in you guys,” -you squint at her, trying to determine some sort of…aura, or energy that marked her as different from you- “So how do you even know if you have a soul?”

Eyes barely visible behind the lab glasses narrow at you. Of course you just stare straight back up at her, head held up high and defiant and daring her to challenge you.

It’s subtle, but they have been training you to notice micro-expressions. The way her lips purse and her eyes shutter at your words…

You’ve managed to instill _doubt_ in her.

It feels like an eternity in the shared breath you both hold.

But then she just looks down, down at your hospital gown and the IV poking out of your arm. The searing orange that will always mark you as different, no matter what words tumble out of your mouth.

That’s all it takes to break the spell. “Your checkup is complete,” she says instead. “Return to your handler.”

_(In the end sympathy is nothing without action.)_

* * *

**-Sidestep Suit-**

It’s funny, it really is. The only way you can begin to become yourself is by taking on a mask.

Somewhere along the way you start to become it. Somewhere along the way, you start to let your guard down and let yourself _hope._

That’s how they get you.

* * *

**-Nothing, Part II-**

They strip you down to nothing and rebuild you into the tool you were meant to be.

“Watch yourself. You don’t want to be turned into spare parts, do you?”

You say nothing and smile your most unsettling grin. This one’s still too fresh to know how to deal with you, he just silently gapes at your expression as his fingers twitch to do something about you. But he’s not grown emotionally cold enough to punish you for _smiling._

The silence starts to grow uncomfortable, it makes him nervous. Makes him more prone to mistakes.

Makes him forget to double check the restraints as he turns away from you.

_~~You’re not haunted by his screams.~~ _

_~~You’re not.~~ _

* * *

**-Incognito Disguise-**

Living for revenge has been all well and good for keeping you alive until now but what it’s not good for is actually providing you with the semblance of a real life. You feel like a hidden flame, burning so hotly that no one can see you with the naked eye.

Anyone who gets close will only get burnt. People are liabilities and targets and enemies.

They will all burn and burn and burn for what they’ve done to you. But for now you have to remain invisible to their watchful eyes. No matter how much it chafes.

* * *

**-Puppet-**

What is your puppet if not just another suit of armour to don against the world? A different set of assumptions, a different set of capabilities…what does it matter that this suit is made of flesh and bone?

In the end, a quick smile against warm skin and a casual friendliness is just as effective in clouding their eyes as any makeup and costume. People actually like Simba, he’s too tiny and cute looking to come off than anything more than a merry prankster. The sort of guy who’d buy everyone a drink and then proceed to cause endearingly entertaining mischief with a roguish grin.

(He shoots them dead with the same smile he’d given at that bawdy joke they told him mere hours earlier.)

* * *

**-Villain Armour-**

You promised yourself you wouldn’t hide anymore. Wouldn’t run anymore.

No, it’s time to stand your ground, roar out a challenge to the world - _this is me, here I am. I will not cower before you, I am not afraid to exist._

You have become _Pride._

The heels make you feel taller, stand straighter, make sure you know how important it is to keep your balance. Mortum wasn’t exactly happy with how utterly impractical the choice is but you like the way it keeps you on your toes. (No pun intended.) Every step counts.

And well, the extra armour’s there to help you when you do misstep.

You think Ortega would frown at you if he realised why you made that particular decision. Sure it’s okay for him to be reckless and deliberately throw himself into dangerous situations for the thrill of tasting the sweet sweet rush that comes from feeling alive in the face of death…but you can’t? Damn hypocrite.

You are glorious and resplendent, a true conqueror in gold and red. The world shall hear the lion roar and tremble at your feet.

_(What? Yes, of course I want a cape Mortum, how am I suppose to monologue effectively without a dramatic billowing cape?)_

* * *

  
**-Mob Boss Suits-**

People makes assumptions according to what they see and you’re not afraid to use that to your advantage. Dress for power and they’ll treat you accordingly.

It’s so laughably easy. You don’t even have to manipulate them when they take their own ideas of what clothing means and run with it, seeing the outer darkness and power and wealth you exude and believing it must be the same on the inside. They just love to fall over themselves doing things for you, thinking you must be some big name just as long as you act like it.

Fake it ‘til you make it. Your tailored suits and golden rings are just the mask you need in a cutthroat world like this.

(It’s so _easy_ to fall into the role.)

* * *

**-The Most Eye-Bleedingly Attention Grabbing Outfit You Could Find-**

You’re a lion, not a mouse. You’ll never be normal, why not embrace it?

They taught you how to hide, how to camouflage yourself…how to be anything they needed you to be. Clothing has always been one of your main weapons, your wits and tongue one of the few things they could never take away from you, not completely.

You’re supposed to be free. So you dress freely in defiance of all the lessons they taught you. Dress to stand out in a crowd and draw attention to yourself, dress to say _fuck you_ to all the suitably trendy fashion codes or carefully bland outfits they forced on you.

“Yeah, that’s right. Like what you see?” You give a wink for good measure at the horrified lady staring at you who looks almost nauseated. If she doesn’t like your lime green heeled crocs, that’s her problem.

She just shakes her head.

Let them think what they want, you know she won’t remember your face, just the clothes. The clothes you can take off.

_(In the end, isn’t it just another role you’re playing?)_

_(In the end, who’s to say you aren’t just hiding behind the smug grins and loud-mouthed idiot attitude?)_

“You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you deliberately dress as horribly as you can,” Ortega huffs. “I helped you pick out a nice wardrobe and yet you dress like this…”

That prompts you to turn to him, smirking. “What can I say? It’s fun irritating people sometimes. Besides, if you hate it that much, you could always just tear all this off me…” Ortega’s not the only one who knows how to give suggestive little winks.

It makes him laugh as he gives you a teasing shove. “Don’t tempt me here out in public! Those duck shorts are bad enough to rip off you even without the incentive!”

“My Donny Duck shorts are offended at such base insults.”

**Author's Note:**

> A VISUAL ON SOME OF THE OUTFITS HERE - https://ortegatrash.tumblr.com/post/186445040113


End file.
